Students and teachers gave a fitting reply to the farcical promotion of academic restructuring by the DU VC in Antardhvani by turning up in huge numbers at the DUTA’s call and participating in the Protest March to the Parliament, demanding a roll-back of the FYUP. The DUTA also highlighted the manner in which the Government is trying to deviously introduce contract-system in teaching by not filling the 4000 plus vacancies and excluding most of the existing ad hoc teachers from any hope of regular employment by allowing the VC to impose arbitrary screening criteria and an incorrect reservations roster. The DUTA had organized this March along with various students’ organisations including AISA, AIDSO, DSU, KYS, SFI, AISF, CYSS (AAP), SYS, PACHAAS and OSO.
While the University administration continues to pretend ignorance of the discontent among students and teachers, the anger of the University community against the ill-conceived FYUP was evident as five thousand plus students and teachers marched from outside Zakir Husain College to the Parliament Street where they were joined by MPs, leaders of political parties, trade unions, women’s organizations and civil society bodies. Prominent leaders like Manish Sisodia and Ashutosh (AAP), Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M), OP Kohli (BJP), Tarun Kumar Mandal (SUCI-Communist), Udit Raj (SC/ST Federation), DP Tripathi (NCP), Kavita Krishnan (CPI-ML and AIPWA), Jagmati Sangwan (AIDWA) and Iqbal Singh Sindhu (AIFUCTO), All India Forum for Right to Education (AIFRTE) joined the procession at Parliament Street. Representatives of other prominent teachers’ associations like FEDCUTA, Jamia Teachers’ Association, JNUTA, Ambedkar University Teachers’ Association and students union JNUSU also joined the March. Trade Unions CITU, AIUTUC and UTUC joined the March. The March culminated in a massive Public Meeting next to the Parliament Street police Barricades.
Manish Sisodia addressed the issue of commercialization of education and large-scale contractualization in teaching jobs. He also criticized the DU VC’s callous disregard of all democratic norms and processes, as was recently evident in the controversy over the formation of Governing Bodies in the Delhi Government colleges. He underlined the need to build popular resistance against the Government’s commercialization agenda in Education and expressed the AAP’s commitment to fighting against FYUP. OP Kohli (BJP) congratulated the swarms of young students for expressing their anger against FYUP in such clear terms and attacked the DU VC for not having any dialogue with DUTA and introducing substandard courses. Women’s organization leaders Kavita Krishnan, Jagmati Sangwan and Ritu Kaushik (AIMSS) expressed their opposition to the FYUP by stating that it would keep the large majority of girls and young women from poorer families out of good jobs and higher studies that are the only guarantee against the conservative pressure of Khap Panchayats and the patriarchal family structures. Sitaram Yechury also emphasized on the urgent need to combat commercialization in education and slammed the Government for promoting a VC who has destroyed the hard-won reputation of Delhi University by bringing in courses of suspect quality through the FYUP. He assured the gathering that all the democratic sections among political parties will try to ensure that Dinesh Singh is removed from Vice Chancellorship and the FYUP will be made into a national issue. DUTA President Nandita Narain expressed the DUTA’s resolve to continue the struggle with greater intensity till the principal demands of the teachers and students are met. She warned the Government that its indifference to the plight of the Delhi University community would cost it heavily in the General Elections as the destruction of a Central university like DU is going to alienate the masses and turn them against any party in power that imposes anti-people measures under the garb of reforms. She attributed this indifference as a factor in the Congress Party’s heavy defeat in the last Assembly elections. She appealed to all sections of the public to join the struggle against FYUP and the policies which undermine the future of students and teachers in higher education.
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